


song of the open road, sunshine and infinities

by Rozjozbrod



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery, Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Summer, i like sunshine and i love love so here we are, lets be real this is just plain romanticism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:02:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23775787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rozjozbrod/pseuds/Rozjozbrod
Summary: Anne and Gilbert spend a sun-soaked day by the creek, and Anne cannot help but ponder how infinite life feels beside him.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley, Shirbert - Relationship
Comments: 12
Kudos: 150





	song of the open road, sunshine and infinities

In the summer of 1898, still a quarter of a century before young girls pressed photographs into boys' palms and sent them off to war, Anne learned a valuable lesson about infinity. It would be years until she thought about it again, for one did not dwell upon the concept of infinity until such circumstances arise that make it impossible. When she first learned it, she hadn’t been staring out windows in worried silence, or listening to the radio with terror in her heart. She didn’t yet know the difference between patrol flights or bomber engines by the sounds they made as they streaked through the night sky. She’d never seen a man begging in the streets with a missing leg and hands that shook because they had once held a bayonet, and killed with it. Days were months and months were years and it was infinite, eternal torture. War, in 1898, was still a vocabulary word from her schoolbooks, or something that she would write about in fiction-- as far away from her as the stars in the heavens or the idea that life could change from her sun-soaked summer existence. 

Yet she pondered infinity. Back when the skies were cloudless and blue and the wild onions perfumed the air on a breeze, she had felt the first flash of the strange emotion: a bright, shining moment where she realized that she was living a life so perfect that it could never last. It bulldozed her, this thought. Never had she experienced such opposing emotions as peace and fear in such brutal force and immediacy — she stopped dead in her tracks. 

She was no stranger to the forest in which she walked, nor the path. The trees knew her fiery red hair and laughter as well as their own seasons, and their thickets and caves had gifted her with the most extraordinary memories since arriving to Avonlea some years ago. Now, where the groves used to be mysterious, she knew the rusty dirt and the sea breeze and they knew, in turn, her freckles and kind touch. But the Earth had never seen her stop so quietly and abruptly. As if to coax her out of her thoughts, a wind picked up and ruffled her skirts about her knees and her hair about her face-- but when even that didn’t shake her, the wind pressed her companion to turn. He did.

“Anne?” 

The voiceless wind had chosen as their champion the young Gilbert Blythe, and he had risen to the call with an edge of worry to his voice. He too, had never seen the storm of a girl so unmoving. Still a boy in the eyes of the world, but a man in other sorts, Gilbert was just the sort of gentle that could stoke a fire and not extinguish or agitate it and for that, Anne loved him dearly. At the sound of his voice, her limpid, gray eyes lost their depth and she flickered back to life.

“You alright?” He asked, jogging back down the path towards her.

Sadness hung in her, but only faintly. Her smile returned. “Just so.”

He regarded her. “You vanished for a moment.”

But her mischief returned softly, as if her grief had no place amongst trees as old and wise as these. So she shook her hair from her eyes and smiled. “Occupational hazard, dear Gil.” She took the wind beneath her wings and began to lead the way through the trees.

“Of what, then?” Asked Gilbert after her.

“Of a dreamer!” She yelled, joyous again. 

The breeze picked up, and sent her his half-exasperated, half-awed laugh as a gift. Soon he was beside her again, and they made their way through the forest at a joyful pace, the sun warming their shoulders straight through to their backbones. They stopped only once, for Anne to unlace her boots and continue the path in her bare feet-- she said she felt the earth better that way, with the sandy dirt between her toes and the path before her. He mentioned that it should be obvious, but she only laughed and told him he didn’t quite catch her meaning. 

They walked until they heard water, and then the path curved away to reveal a deep, slow-moving part of the creek. The sand was bright with sunshine and warm to the touch and it wasn’t long before he, too, had removed his boots and tossed them into the long grass at the trees edge. Anne had walked right into the creek, pulling her skirt up just so that it wouldn’t touch the surface, and now she stood with her face skyward, expression in a half-sigh. The sunshine turned her skin impossibly golden. 

“Oh, how lucky we are to live in a world where there are Junes.” She proclaimed. 

He joined her where the water met the sand. “I do believe you said that about October.” 

“Duality of woman.” Replied Anne, easily. “Can one not love in plurality?”

He smiled, softly. A boy of numbers and science, Gilbert spent most of his days trying to make the world quantifiable, but then stormed into his life this  _ nature _ thing-- this girl of bright hair and clear eyes, whose hand was always warm upon his. And he realized the futility of quantity when she gave and gave, never depleting herself. It made his chest tighten as he fought to contain the emotion that wanted to pour out of him in waves of silver. 

“I suppose any emotion can be plural.” He stepped into the water. 

“Not hate.” Countered Anne. 

“Can’t it?”

She thought about it for a moment. She wiggled her toes and dug herself in deeper to the mud, just to feel anchored by it. “No.” She decided. “Hate hollows you out until nothing remains.”

It was profoundly wise, but he was still a boy, in some ways. “I don’t believe you could hate anything.” He mocked. 

She turned to look at him and he shrunk back, as if she had made him feel a bit foolish. There were precious few people in the world who truly knew the things that she had endured on her path to Avonlea and the Cuthberts. Diana, Anne’s most bosom friend, was privy only to the horrors that Anne knew would not wound or scandalize her. The Cuthberts knew more than most, but even to them Anne had not divulged everything, for fear of upsetting them. It was only Gilbert that knew the extent of the trials and terror, for he possessed the quiet demeanor that did not belittle or judge-- only listened. She had not quite  _ intended _ to tell him, but his soft brown eyes had been so kind that he had coaxed it out of her anyway, and a burden had been lifted from her. Perhaps not lifted, really… but shared, surely. It was a thrilling, wonderful thing to submit oneself to the terrifying ordeal of being known, but judging by his expression, he had lost himself in the sunshine and cool breezes and forgotten just how deeply she knew hatred, how desperately she had fought to overcome it. 

“Sorry.” He hung his head and she loved him for it. 

“It’s nothing.” She admonished him. 

“I admire you.” 

It was simple; a sentence blurted out at the lips before it could be stopped. Uncharacteristically vulnerable, perfectly repentant. An apology of three words, and perhaps a divulsion of sorts. She raised her eyes to his earnest ones, and though his cheeks flushed, his gaze was unwavering. 

“I admire you.” Repeated Gilbert. “To have seen what you have, and endured what you have. And to come through it all, kindness in your heart in abundance. It couldn’t have been easy.”

“Fire hardens that which does not melt.” She said. 

“Who said that?”

She blinked. “I did.”

When he looked back at her there was something golden in his eyes, beneath the sunshine, and it made her feel so positively warm that she scooped her hand into the clear water and splashed him, because perhaps she was just a girl in some ways, too. There were some emotions that she wasn’t as well acquainted with as others, and the way his eyes shone made her feel them all at once in blinding color. But he laughed as the water hit him, and the tension broke like the sky after a rainstorm and they played like children beneath it. 

But they were not children anymore. Not really. Though they were alone here, Anne knew that the days of innocent, unhindered childhood frolicking with Gilbert had passed and the longer they pretended that they hadn’t, the more trouble they would be in. For some time now, Anne had felt an acute awareness of being beside him in town where curious eyes and gossiping mouths followed them everywhere. She was no stranger to being scrutinized, neither was Gilbert, but these were gazes of a penetrating and peculiar sort. She was not being scorned, exactly, but there was something all too knowing in the eyes of strangers that made Anne feel exposed. So they met in places like this now, where their only witnesses were the leaves on the trees that floated in spirals until they landed gently on the surface of the clear pools. But the wind through the trees still sounded like whispers. 

Perhaps she wouldn’t have minded either, save for the simple and undeniable fact; she was falling for Gilbert. When he was near, she couldn’t help but be consumed by the most arresting thoughts: of his lean body, his delicate hands, his homeward brown eyes. Even now, with his suspenders hanging loosely about his hips and the water lapping at his bare ankles, she couldn’t help but glance at him from the corner of her eye. But it was a bit like candlelight in a dim room; he flickered, brightly, even as she tried to cast her attention elsewhere. 

Later on, Gilbert pulled orchard apples from his bag and she brought cheese and bread to share. They sat strategically-- him with his back against the trunk of a friendly oak, her reclining on a warm rock. But after he had brushed the last of the breadcrumbs from his fingers, he unearthed a book of poetry from his bag.

Anne sat up straight. “What’s that?” 

He turned it over in his hand, to read the spine. “Walt Whitman.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I can see that. What I meant was, since when do you read poetry?” 

“There are still some things you don’t know about me, Anne.” Gilbert teased, opening the book and propping it against his knees. He opened to a page and began to read silently to himself, concentration crossing his features. She was sorely offended at his game, and sought to show him so. She picked up a pebble, turned it once between her fingers, then launched it at his book.

It hit his book with a satisfying ‘whap’ and bounced to the dirt beside him. He feigned offense, mouth dropping open. “What was that for?”

“You’re selfish.” 

His eyes returned to his book, but his mouth curved into a smile. “How so?”

“You’re reading to yourself.” 

He looked up, a playful glint in his eye. “You want me to read poetry to you?”

Her cheeks reddened. His question held so much; mocking, disbelief, but underneath, a softness. It seemed too tender an activity for childhood friends to endeavor to do together— far too intimate. Poetry wasn’t for the faint of heart; she had learned long ago that though she had a proclivity for maths, science, and other noble pursuits, human beings were designed to thrive with lungs full of air and hearts full of passion, and poetry was the fruit that fed her, nourished her. Hearing him read poetry would be as if he was taking a piece of his heart and placing it into her palm to keep. Maybe she could forget this creek, one day, and maybe the woods would forget her; but if he read to her, she might be doomed to remember it until her body returned to the stars. 

“Go on, then.”

He cleared his throat dramatically and began to read, but before long his voice took on the clear, melodic intonations of a tenured poet as his mocking faded. “Afoot and lighthearted/I take to the open road/healthy, free, the road before you/the long, brown path before you/leading wherever you choose.”

He called to the earth-- to the winding paths that had led them to this wood, to the windswept cliffs to the south. His voice was like the sweet dew upon the apple orchards, life-giving and shining in the faint, morning sunrise. 

“Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good fortune/Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing/ Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms/ strong and content I travel the open road.”

He chanced a glance up at her when she was not prepared, when her breath was so suspended in the amber of his poetry that she could not mask her expression with mocking or pretention. Perhaps he had not expected to see her so affected and it affected him thus in turn, brown eyes met gray and the sea and earth collided. There, suddenly, it was written, as surely as the inked words in his book, that they would play for each other. A divine artist saw their eyes meet and took forth His quill to draw an unbroken line between Gilbert’s heart and hers, and it was made of sturdy stuff. 

So she rose to her feet, because it threatened to spill from her in ribbons, and walked to the water’s edge. She heard him clear his throat and continue, but the words fluttered around her with butterfly wings and she couldn’t catch them. Instead, she waded deeper into the pools until her skirt touched the surface and grew heavy, and then deeper. Algae covered the rocks at her feet, making them deliciously smooth and cool, but even Anne could not fight the pull of her skirt when her footing slipped. With a small yelp, she went under. 

Under the surface, life was quiet. She opened her eyes and saw a freshwater trout slink into the grasses and a family of crayfish disappear under the silt. She registered a splash above her but was not worried, and then reached out a ghostly pale hand to the folds of her skirt, which blossomed and billowed in slow-motion under her fingers. Quite suddenly, she felt a tight grip upon her elbow that pulled her back to the surface.

“What?!” Anne sputtered, as soon as she could. 

“Anne, are you alright?” Where moments before, his voice had been dripping in honey, now it was alarmed. His cotton pants were not rolled up as if he had charged in without a thought to them, and his eyes were wide. 

She registered it with a softness. “I’m fine, Gilbert.”

“You went under so fast.” 

She tried to stifle her laugh, for she knew he had been well-intentioned. “I can swim, you know.”

“Oh, can you?” His features lightened with relief and boyish mischief. 

She sensed it coming before it did. “Gilbert-”

But she was no match for his joyous enthusiasm and it was hard to escape him with her legs fully submerged and her petticoats heavy with river water. She squealed as he pulled her under and they hit the water. She regained her faculties before he did when they resurfaced, and she pushed his unbalanced body back under. He retaliated with a well-placed splash in her direction and she giggled when her counter-attack went straight into his laughing mouth. He made his way towards her, splashing and creating a ruckus amongst the surface-dwellers, and though she managed to evade him, his fingers accidentally closed around her apron bow and untied it with a single pull. 

“Gilbert!” She screeched, turning and holding it to her body. 

“Sorry!” He was still laughing. “That surely was not my intention.”

“Tie it back, you rogue.” She went to him and turned, waiting. It was only when his hands, warm despite the cold water, went to her waist did she feel something entirely new, springtime in summer, flush her body. He must have realized it in the same instant for his movements became impossibly slow as he retied the knot. It would have been easy, breathlessly so, to turn in his hold-- if she did, they would have been mere inches apart. The unmovable force of gravity would pull them together and she would finally know what his lips would feel like upon hers. 

_ Go on, then _ . A scandalous voice whispered in her mind. 

She thought of poetry, of submitting herself to the arduous task of being passionate without reservation, of being vulnerable, of putting everything on paper. Just as easily as she could kiss him, she could choose not to; but there was a pull inside of her to grab life by the lapels, to bite to the bone and suck out all the marrow of possibility. So she decided to twist in his hands and found that he was much closer than she had expected. He had freckles in the sun, gold flecks in his eyes. 

In the end, it was Gilbert who pressed his lips to hers. In all of her girlish daydreams, she had somehow never allowed a thought of how close another person would feel while she kissed them. But here she was now, and she could feel his breath upon her cheek where his nose pressed into her skin. She had never thought that lips could taste of anything, either, but he tasted like the cool water that they’d been frolicking in and the sweetness of apples. Then his grip tightened upon her waist and her thoughts began to lose all semblance of order. A quiet hum of pleasure escaped his throat and her heart felt fit to burst, to escape the prison of her ribcage and frolic amongst the wildflowers and songbirds. 

And she felt infinity beneath her fingers. Beneath his kiss she felt thousands more, she felt his hair going gray and hairline retreating and his skin creasing and wrinkling where he smiled. She heard the choirs singing her down the aisle, the sunsets and nights and mornings. She didn’t know how long they kissed; perhaps days, perhaps years. It didn’t matter; they were infinite. 

When they broke apart, if they even did, he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered that he’d burned for her as long as he’d known her. She whispered back that she was burning, and that she would, eternally, burn. 

His lips returned to her, or perhaps they had never left. It was infinity. 

**Author's Note:**

> if u read this all the way to the end and waded through all the metaphors, I applaud you. plz drop a comment and tell me if you too fear the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known by a Brown Eyed Boy.


End file.
